Fertility Help Hub

Fertility Help Hub

My name is Eloise Edington and in 2019 I founded Fertility Help Hub – a lifestyle fertility portal where people around the world can find expert content, community, resources and wellness discounts to digest from the comfort of their home. These are all the things my husband and I wish we’d had whilst enduring our own personal struggle to create our family, as we rode the uncertain, heart-breaking rollercoaster of sperm donor conception and IVF.

Our Story

My husband and I have been married for eight years, and we live in London with our children and a dog unshakable in his belief that he’s actually a human too!

Long before becoming an IVF warrior, I was a chronic worrier. Somewhere in the back of my mind I always had the unhelpful concern that having children might be a challenge for me. Unfortunately, those negative thoughts became a reality when my husband and I were confronted with male infertility; he has a genetic condition, affecting 1 in 600 men. We worked through his shocking diagnosis of azoospermia (lack of sperm), unsuccessful sperm retrieval and the uncertainty of the IVF journey together, but it was tough.

Hitting Emotional Rock-bottom

There was a lot of crying, balanced with laughter. We produced a large (but not unreasonable) number of empty wine bottles. We came through the process stronger — more resilient. Random internet surfing was our greatest weakness and worst enemy. We self-diagnosed everything, and it left us feeling confused, overwhelmed and lonely. Picking a sperm donor was a bitter-sweet experience for him and a challenge for me. We used photos of him as a boy to try and match with a donor most like him, which was never going to happen! On the really bad days, these feelings grew to an unbearable size. But in the end, we were blessed with success and now have three wonderful donor-conceived children, via the same sperm donor.

Why our mission for Fertility Help Hub is to help others trying to conceive

At this point, our friends started coming to us for advice and help, which we found incredibly humbling. A fertility struggle can leave scars beneath the surface, which don’t just go away. Talking to others about our journey, sharing our experiences and the advice we picked up along the way – it made us feel like we could do more. If it was helping our friends, and it was helping us, maybe it would help others, too.

So, having lived it first-hand, our mission for Fertility Help Hub is to offer people all of the things we wish we’d had along the way: fertility expert tips, nutritional advice, helpful resources and discounts, emotional support and real life stories, collected together in one beautiful, optimistic space. Donor conception is a huge part of our platform, as is telling LGTBQ+ stories.

Come and join our Fertility Squad community to meet others going through something similar, match with mentors and benefit from all the free expert advice, tips and discounts.

Eloise x

Posted: 21/10/2020 13:48:02



Comments

Blog post currently doesn't have any comments.